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When you tell Dave Myers that his stomping dance moves on Strictly Come Dancing have made him this year’s unlikely sex symbol, he takes friendly exception.

Not so much of the “unlikely”, says the Hairy Biker with one of his trademark grins. He’s always been a hit with the ladies.

He and pro dance partner Karen Hauer are a big hit with the Strictly audience too. Despite poor scores from the judges last week, they won the longest standing ovation in the show’s history for their Meat Loaf-inspired paso doble.

Even judge Darcey Bussell has confessed she’s a little bit in love with TV chef Dave.

“It does appear that I have a fan in Darcey,” he says. “She’s said it twice now. So no, I wouldn’t say I’m that much of an unlikely sex symbol. My wife fancies me and I’ve always done all right.

“I’m getting lots of messages from fans too, some of them quite passionate. After the paso doble I got one tweet saying: ‘Not so much a matador as a mata-phwoar’.

“Others say they’d dance with me any time. Some of them even look as if they have got their own teeth and everything. I’m building up my lady fans – but I think I’m past my sell-by date.”

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Dave, 55, had barely danced a step beforehand, but unlike his Hairy Biker sidekick Si King he jumped in with both feet when asked to join the show.

“My first reaction was, ‘Yeah I’ll do it,’?” he says. “There was this gremlin on my shoulder telling me it would be fantastic. Si’s reaction was ‘Not on your nelly!’?

“It is the opportunity of a lifetime. Something completely different, outside your comfort zone, with all the support in the world. And hopefully I won’t make too much of a nelly of myself.

“I hadn’t really danced before. Just a few classes on the Bikers so they could film us doing the tango in Buenos Aires.

“When I first came in I apologised to Karen that I had two left feet. She said, ‘That’s not right – you’ve got six!’”

Sidekick: With Hairy Biker pal Si King

He and wife Lilli didn’t even do a first dance at their wedding two years ago in his Cumbrian home town of Barrow-in-Furness.

“We were too drunk!” he says. “We can barely remember the wedding – I think we might have danced to Rock You Like a Hurricane – we just jigged up and down a bit.”

Wife Lilli, who he met while filming a TV show in Romania, isn’t fazed by the saucy attention her husband is attracting.

“She knows I am having a good time and she is quite proud of me,” he reports. “She says it does me good.”

It’s not what anyone would have predicted for the Dave Myers who was once a furnaceman in a steelworks. However, that was to pay his way through university, where he won a Fine Arts degree.

He went on to work as a BBC make-up artist, specialising in prosthetics, and met Si when they both worked on the set of a Catherine Cookson adaptation.

Their love of good food and motorbikes led to the Hairy Bikers cooking shows and they have written 10 books too. Hairy Dieters even toppled 50 Shades of Grey from the top of??the book charts.??All the dancing is making sure his dieting stays on track.

“Strictly is helping me keep the weight off,” he says. “I also started off with a bad back and dodgy knees, but Karen has been teaching me posture, how to walk properly and stand straight.

“I’ve spent 35 years huddled over a motorbike, and now my back is getting straight, my backache has gone and my knees are great.

“My latin trousers which were measured on day one have been taken in twice, much to my joy. It’s the most exercise I’ve done in my life!

“But not everyone is lucky enough to be dancing with the world mambo champion. It’s like having your first driving lesson in a Ferrari.”

“We get on like a house on fire,” he says. “She’s the boss and she loves her food as well, so we’ve got plenty to talk about.

"We had a lovely double date the other night. Me and Lilli went out for a meal with Karen and Kevin.”

Despite the public acclaim, Dave doubts they can win the trophy.

“If it came to a dance-off the judges have got to judge on technique and I am not going to be as technically wonderful as some of the other fantastic young dancers,” he says.

“But I am enjoying every minute and I am going to work hard and do the best I can. We aren’t trying to do it for a laugh – it just seems to come out that way!

“Bruce and Len have both said we are the people’s champions. If we could bottle the feeling we got last Saturday night it would be amazing.

“When they told us it was the longest standing ovation they have ever had on Strictly, the crowd were still cheering. We were 10ft off the ground – it was a lovely feeling.”

Their fiery routine to I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) even won the attention of the man who sang the original. “That morning we had two tweets off Meat Loaf. I think Mr Loaf is a secret Strictly fan.”

Good pals: With dance partner Karen

He’s not the only one, as Dave explains: “I played truant from training yesterday and went to the harvest festival at Westminster Abbey. There were loads of schoolchildren there, scouts and guides.

“They all stormed the pew to get autographs and have pictures. We have an older following with Hairy Bikers, but Strictly crosses all generations. One of the priests said he’d watched me last week so I asked him to watch again this Saturday and he told me, ‘Don’t worry – we’ll be praying for you'.?”

He adds: “It’s amazing once you get into this ballroom world. I have had with conversations with Mark Benton and Ben Cohen – three fellas sitting with a pint discussing the cha-cha-cha and the correct leg position for a foxtrot. We have been fully Strictlified.

“I think the panic does tend to focus your attention.”

Dave admits he gets stage fright before dancing in front of millions on live TV.

“I defy anybody not to get it on Saturday night. You rehearse and rehearse, but there is no competition between us – we are all rooting for each other.

“But there is a lot of competition with yourself. And you don’t want to let your partner down.

“Karen is investing 30 hours a week of her teaching time in me – I don’t want to mess it up.”